Managing Director Football: Fabio Paratici

[DJS]

The club just seems to have delusions of grandeur.

How many times have we gone after players in the top bracket that then turn us down for a better option? (And when we did finish third and second in league and looked really strong we didn’t capitalise then).

Why are our scouting network not looking far and wide at a variety of right backs / wide right players who can improve that area?

Theres a lot of players out there and we always seem to just try and go for the high profile ones only to be at least we tried afterwards.

So wasted as we have the stadium, the facility, one of the best centre forwards in the world and now one of the best managers and we still look like amateurs.

 

[T-Bone]

The club just seems to have delusions of grandeur.

How many times have we gone after players in the top bracket that then turn us down for a better option? (And when we did finish third and second in league and looked really strong we didn’t capitalise then).

Why are our scouting network not looking far and wide at a variety of right backs / wide right players who can improve that area?

Theres a lot of players out there and we always seem to just try and go for the high profile ones only to be at least we tried afterwards.

So wasted as we have the stadium, the facility, one of the best centre forwards in the world and now one of the best managers and we still look like amateurs.

Not in anyway having a go at you DJS but I don't agree with this at all. We have the best facilities in the World, we play in the best league in the world and are consistently at the top end of it, we have played in the CL, the CL final 3 seasons ago, we have played in lots of finals recently ok we didn't win them but we have shown we are in the mix for trophies we just are not aggressive enough in the Transfer market to turn ourselves into a superpower. We need to push a little more, I don't think Levy knows how to do that though so without serious investment we are always going to be flustrated. I taught Paratici would make us more aggressive but this does not seem to be the case.

 

[YB123]

 

[CookieYiddo]

Paraciti needs to do a madness now and show what he is about. Secure a couple of good moves and secure them now! If this January ends up the same as all others then a big question mark goes against him.

 

[Nick-TopSpursMan]

Thinking Paratici is awful and should go doesn't mean Levy is off the hook by the way. Levy is the one who hired him and is clueless about everything related to footballing decisions.

 

[Aphex]

Whatever the reasons, it's been some awful PR for the club the last few days.

On top of the joke of a manager search last summer.

It's just giving the media more fuel for the Conte isn't being backed agenda but it's not just that, we are the only PL club who hired an elite manager mid season, first window open and we've done nothing.

Villa looked to have backed Gerrard big time. Not the best players in the world but their team is stronger than it was in December. It shows us up even more.

We may still bring someone in, but it's looking more and more likely to be desperate loan signings, and the club will say they've been our first choice target all along. Haha.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Whatever the reasons, it's been some awful PR for the club the last few days.

On top of the joke of a manager search last summer.

It's just giving the media more fuel for the Conte isn't being backed agenda but it's not just that, we are the only PL club who hired an elite manager mid season, first window open and we've done nothing.

Villa looked to have backed Gerrard big time. Not the best players in the world but their team is stronger than it was in December. It shows us up even more.

We may still bring someone in, but it's looking more and more likely to be desperate loan signings, and the club will say they've been our first choice target all along. Haha.

Paratici wasn’t involved in our manager search until very late on and really doubt Nuno was the one he wanted us to hire.

Im still sceptical about his signings and what juve fans say about him is concerning but the window isn’t closed yet and it’s really how we line up by start of next season which will show if he is any good or not. This Jan was always going to be difficult and tbh not much we can do when Barca and Liverpool come in for our two main targets, we are no where near their level yet unfortunately, we just have to hope we have suitable alternatives lined up for Jan & summer.

 

[For the love of Spurs]

His squad building is horrendous.

In the summer, we lost Bale and Carlos (12 PL goals last season), then we sold Lamela too (1 PL goal last season).

That's 13 league goals gone out of our squad. Yet the only attacking player we signed was GIl. Now I like him, talented young player but nowhere near being a consistent goal threat yet and only 20 years old.

Failing to bring in any attackers with goalscoring ability proves how inept Paratici is.

And his squad building was also criticised at Juventus.

Yeh but not buying anyone to replace Bale and Vinnie, not sure that is Paratici, that seems more like the club saving money. If Paratici went out and got a dud thats fair criticism but to be left with holes that is ENIC all over.

Criticism of Paratici at Juv was he got a lot of players on big contracts and some of whom where not great. That is his history, our history is not signing players and leaving gaping holes.

 

[Aphex]

Paratici wasn’t involved in our manager search until very late on and really doubt Nuno was the one he wanted us to hire.

Im still sceptical about his signings and what juve fans say about him is concerning but the window isn’t closed yet and it’s really how we line up by start of next season which will show if he is any good or not. This Jan was always going to be difficult and tbh not much we can do when Barca and Liverpool come in for our two main targets, we are no where near their level yet unfortunately, we just have to hope we have suitable alternatives lined up for Jan & summer.

Mate Nuno was absolutely FP's pick. Even Levy didn't want him.

He went from Gattuso to Nuno, then spent a load of money signing players for Nuno's system, who then gets sacked 3 months later. Not to mention it seems Paratici relies on Mendes to do everything for him. Almost every deal we do is Mendes.

I agree with you about the rest, but let's not pretend it doesn't look a bit concerning at the moment.

 

[Wsussexspur]

Paratici wasn’t involved in our manager search until very late on and really doubt Nuno was the one he wanted us to hire.

Im still sceptical about his signings and what juve fans say about him is concerning but the window isn’t closed yet and it’s really how we line up by start of next season which will show if he is any good or not. This Jan was always going to be difficult and tbh not much we can do when Barca and Liverpool come in for our two main targets, we are no where near their level yet unfortunately, we just have to hope we have suitable alternatives lined up for Jan & summer.

Nuno was his choice! Ablet not his first choice he wanted Gattuso! No surprise who his agent is and why Florentina booted him out so quickly when he demanded they signed three players who were represented by Mendes!

Also wasn’t the reason the managerial search so farcical as Levy wanted to wait until Paratici was in place before appointing a manager

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Mate Nuno was absolutely FP's pick. Even Levy didn't want him.

He went from Gattuso to Nuno, then spent a load of money signing players for Nuno's system, who then gets sacked 3 months later. Not to mention it seems Paratici relies on Mendes to do everything for him. Almost every deal we do is Mendes.

I agree with you about the rest, but let's not pretend it doesn't look a bit concerning at the moment.

I don’t think there was any ITK that Nuno was FP’s pick, it doesn’t make any sense.

And my point was more that Paul O K says FP messed up a 3 month manager search which isn’t true as he was still working for Juve until the last month of our search.

The jury is still out on his signings but I’m willing to wait until start of next season to fully judge.

Also we’d not have conte without FP and if FP is so shit at signing players then I doubt conte would’ve wanted to line up with him.

Also that’s not true re.Mendes.

We signed 4 players in Summer and not one was a mendes client I don’t think.

 

[Joshua shepherd]

The sad thing is that there are 6 positions in our starting line-up that could easily be improved upon by making signings from the premier league alone.

Why do we feel the need to go so far afield to improve our team? We may not be the biggest pull across europe but in the prem we could be an upgrade for players at 12 different teams (if you exclude West Ham). Instead we waste our time trying to find the obscurest players with the most chance of failing.

I don't even care that we didn't get Diaz, he probably will struggle for 18 months especially trying to displace Mane. The frustrating thing is that we could improve the team with simple deals and we don't.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

The sad thing is that there are 6 positions in our starting line-up that could easily be improved upon by making signings from the premier league alone.

Why do we feel the need to go so far afield to improve our team? We may not be the biggest pull across europe but in the prem we could be an upgrade for players at 12 different teams (if you exclude West Ham). Instead we waste our time trying to find the obscurest players with the most chance of failing.

I don't even care that we didn't get Diaz, he probably will struggle for 18 months especially trying to displace Mane. The frustrating thing is that we could improve the team with simple deals and we don't.

This is a good point but I suppose there is a reluctance for PL teams to sell their players to other teams and they hike up the prices so we try our luck abroad.

E.G. Lamptey is a decent talent but Brighton want £50m!

Also we went after Traore in the PL but Barca came calling.

I think a mix of talents from abroad and talents from the championship is actually the best way to go.

The money in the PL is so large now that it’s not like before when the top teams could bully the lesser teams to buy their players like Man.U and Chelsea did and tried to do with us re. Carrick, Berbatov, Modric etc.

If we’d signed Grealish when he was at Villa in Championship and Maddison when he was in Championship we’d have two young English brilliant talents for peanuts. They’re the kind of opportunities we’ve missed.

Ollie Watkins and Benhrama are other ones. Not world beaters but good young players that perform well at PL level and can be improved.

Mix those with more established signings from abroad like if we’d gone for B.Fernandes instead of Ndombele and GLC and we’d be flying.

Overall the strategy has been poor the last 5-8 years. We had it good for a while signing young English players like Lennon Walker bale Dawson etc etc mixed with talent like Davids VDV Berba modric

But since then we’ve been very scattergun.

Hoping Paratici aligns well with conte. We have to just hope and wait.

 

[bat-chain]

I just hope someone lets Levy know there seems to be a fair few out of work DOF's on Twitter who would have concluded the Traore and Diaz deals in double quick time and without Liverpool or Barcelona knowing a thing about it.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

I just hope someone lets Levy know there seems to be a fair few out of work DOF's on Twitter who would have concluded the Traore and Diaz deals in double quick time and without Liverpool or Barcelona knowing a thing about it.

How on Earth do you know that? ? By all accounts our interest was leaked in both cases by agents etc to attract bigger fish, exactly what happened.

 

[Joshua shepherd]

This is a good point but I suppose there is a reluctance for PL teams to sell their players to other teams and they hike up the prices so we try our luck abroad.

E.G. Lamptey is a decent talent but Brighton want £50m!

Also we went after Traore in the PL but Barca came calling.

I think a mix of talents from abroad and talents from the championship is actually the best way to go.

The money in the PL is so large now that it’s not like before when the top teams could bully the lesser teams to buy their players like Man.U and Chelsea did and tried to do with us re. Carrick, Berbatov, Modric etc.

If we’d signed Grealish when he was at Villa in Championship and Maddison when he was in Championship we’d have two young English brilliant talents for peanuts. They’re the kind of opportunities we’ve missed.

Ollie Watkins and Benhrama are other ones. Not world beaters but good young players that perform well at PL level and can be improved.

Mix those with more established signings from abroad like if we’d gone for B.Fernandes instead of Ndombele and GLC and we’d be flying.

Overall the strategy has been poor the last 5-8 years. We had it good for a while signing young English players like Lennon Walker bale Dawson etc etc mixed with talent like Davids VDV Berba modric

But since then we’ve been very scattergun.

Hoping Paratici aligns well with conte. We have to just hope and wait.

I agree with you to some extent because the money in the Premier league is crazy money which has meant teams don't have to bend over at the players will, but that doesn't mean there aren't deals to be done though.

Especially when you consider that the players we're linked with or have signed from abroad recently are very rarely cheap. Vlahovic was £60m, Dias £40-60m, Royal was £30m and Romero £40m.

If you'd put those figures into premier league players you could get some absolute gems.

Agree with the Championship too, although the only Championship players I remember us signing recently are Jack Clarke and Sessegnon who have both struggled. Bowen is another one we should've gone for.

 

[crazyguitarman]

This opportunistic "blind man throwing darts" analogy is how Levy himself likes to operate though, making last-minute punts on seemingly random players at the end of the transfer window. We have one, maybe two targets that we follow all month without pulling the trigger, only to be left scrambling when it falls apart.

If we had a genuine recruitment strategy, I would think we would be identifying hundreds of targets throughout the course of the season and then carefully tailoring the right players for the system based on lots of factors (whether they suit the system, want to come, other clubs might try to gazzump us, etc.). As it stands the transfer policy seems to be based mainly on media hype.

 

[Timberwolf]

I don’t think there was any ITK that Nuno was FP’s pick, it doesn’t make any sense.

And my point was more that Paul O K says FP messed up a 3 month manager search which isn’t true as he was still working for Juve until the last month of our search.

The jury is still out on his signings but I’m willing to wait until start of next season to fully judge.

Also we’d not have conte without FP and if FP is so shit at signing players then I doubt conte would’ve wanted to line up with him.

Also that’s not true re.Mendes.

We signed 4 players in Summer and not one was a mendes client I don’t think.

Wasn't there loads of press and ITK about Nuno being Paratici's man?

My memory is hazy on where this info came from but I feel like the general consensus is that:

- Levy all but appointed Fonseca as he had promised the fans an attacking, possession based style of play.
- Paratici officially started at Spurs, met Fonseca and didn't like him/his philosophy so binned him off (Fonseca himself has confirmed this part)
- Paratici went for Gattuso and was shot down by the fans
- Paratici then persuaded Levy that Nuno could play the attacking, possession based football that Levy had promised, specifically showing him footage of Nuno's Valencia and Porto sides in order to convince him
- As a result of this Levy relented and we got Nuno.

 

[jackson]

I assume Paratici is still having to work within the restrictions we've seen previously so although the negotiator has changed budget hasn't. Relying on Fabio's connections to swing deals in our favour rather than cold cash won't get us too far, certainly when bigger fish come to eat.

We are in a tough spot, we've backed ourselves into a corner with the demise of the squad and the appointment of Conte. The gap has grown, our status has dropped, we want top players but don't have the pull or the budget to get them done. We seem to be operating on the hope that we end up being the best option for a player because others aren't interested but obviously real top players will have bigger better suitors, as we've seen. Only way we would gain an advantage would be going OTT with the money but that'll never happen.

We need a different strategy for recruitment, reality is we can't compete for top players but I doubt that'll correlate with Conte's ambitions.

 

[EastUpperDK82]

Surely the Serie A is now our biggest and most realistic chance of landing some good players before deadline. With Paratici's and Conte's knowledge of the players there.. ? ... we can mention Raphinha, Lamptey and so on. But they would cost 40-50+ and would be very difficult to pull off. As would any deal within the Premier League.